Please discuss! No uncritical sectarianism, bad faith arguments, etc.
Important questions:
- Is the strategy most socialist organizations in the US are using, in your opinion, a good one? What else should they do?
- As individual socialist, what do you think we should be doing? What groups are worth joining?
- What should be done about the sudden rise of socially reactionary beliefs and laws across the country?
Reading posted by users:
Where’s the Winter Palace?, posted by @CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml, written by unknown author, I checked and could not find one on the article.
Conclusion from this text, that I think summarizes it’s premise quite well:
We believe that, in the U.S. in 2018, the truly important theoretical tasks have not been solved. We are in a period of a nascent socialist movement since the 2008 financial crisis. We should not be afraid of new ideas, and should look forward instead of harping on the 20th century. Without bending to reformism or adventurism, we must feel free to put everything back on the table and come to build strategy and theory through struggle.
(Emphasis mine)
As far as the pragmaticism of which Lenin referred, that I’m afraid escapes me. I would recommend rereading the relevant works and if possible link it here and we can discuss it in relation to your idea.
As far as the idea itself regardless, it sounds like a pre-vanguard vanguard if that makes sense. I’m not sure how the logistics would function (getting several split parties to function when they are in fact split, this seems paradoxical to the necessitated existence of this proposed group).
Sectarianism happens because of disagreements on policy. If we can agitate on specific issues (optimally clustered together to ensure anti-imperialism etc) instead of entire, purist, ideologies, we could allow a large variety of radical people to organize together who would otherwise not
Example: Your average anarchist is kind of annoying because they hate everything opposed to forming a full on vanguard party. This is an issue, because most Marxist-Leninist want a vanguard party. Therefore two significant portions of the self-identified Left refuse to work together. It’s also dumb because they have the exact same short term desires and the planet is literally ending (climate change)
If, instead of creating a party which expects everyone in it to have the same political views, we instead focus on specific things that are very important to everyone involved (such as unionization, social issues, anti-imperialism) and work as a “meta-organizer” by connecting different groups with information about actions and stances other groups are taking on those issues.
Or, put more eloquently, the reason parties are split is because of important arguments, but the actual individual beliefs of most (non-imperialistic) self-identified Leftists are the same for the near future, so there is no reason they could not work together anyways.
I agree on the general premise however I have 2 thoughts on the concept.
The anarchists are not anti-imperialist in practice, many have taken on the stance of pro-Ukraine “Russian imperialism”. This could be seen as an opportunity to educate them and it’s true many previously anarchists who have held reactionary stances have switched after being educated, however if this were reasonably obtainable it would have already been done. This is not to say it cannot be done, or that it is not worth doing, not at all, simply that it will be rather difficult and so that should be considered moving forward.
Uniting the left under the banner of anti-imperialism is good however I do not believe it should be our only goal. I believe working to build revolution should as well. There are many ideologies representing all workers and some of the middle class which benefit from anti-imperialist struggle (see rage against the war machine) however the middle class is incompatible with the struggle to liberate the working class of capitalist oppression. Uniting the left under anti-imperialism is likely to blend the 2 movements and ultimately hurt the cause of both as the contradicting class interests (between us and the bourgeoified middle class) are liable to cause great internal strife. Do you see my concern?
I (somewhat) agree with your first point, with the caveat that I think it is easier than you say it is. See this article, I believe the approach we have been taking to defeat US propaganda is non-materialistic and assumes that we can just say the right ideas at someone and then they will agree. Once we start adapting a more materialistic method to counteract propaganda (something which I believe would require already existing power), then we can see if anarchists are practically unredeemable or not (I am aware the writer of that article would probably murder me for citing it in such a context, but, uhhh).
The second is why I specified any such “meta-organization” would have to have multiple goals, and while it would probably be explicitly revolutionary, being too specific could lead to the sectarian splintering we’ve been seeing with most US parties and defeat the whole purpose of it
It would be possible to define something to pursue on top of anti-imperialism that would prevent the issue you mentioned. I would suggest a radical approach to anti-racism, systemic anti-racism, queer struggle, feminism, and anti-ableism, as well as opposition to the prison slavery system and support of labor.
This organization would, rather than unite the left under anti-imperialism alone, instead unite the left under a synthesis of the goals of those who are most likely to be proletarian in this country, and anti-imperialism
Instead of having a party with a strict ideology pre-defined for itself, it would be a meta-organization which seeks to tie together all of the disparate goals of the proletariat
The meta-organization element is essential. If a party were to be created under this principle, it would compete with the time and energy of other organizations. Optimally, the only significant labor the organization should require for organizing should be in organizing its own members, and by allowing members to be part of other political parties (and primarily spend time and energy in them) we could align and tie back together the struggles of these disparate parties into a singular force for the proletariat. A super-coalition.
Of course, this is all speculation and I have no idea if this would work. It seems more effective than just creating more ideological parties for the current US left, but even that I’m unsure of.